March 24, 1983

Author Fined for Defamation

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

ARIS, March 23 -- A French civil court convicted the British writer Graham
Greene and three French publications of defamation today.
The case involved statements Mr. Greene made about a man
who had married the daughter of one of Mr. Greene's
friends.

The court ordered Mr. Greene to pay a fine of 30,000
francs, or about $4,100, and levied 10,000 franc fines
against the directors of a newspaper and two magazines that
had published Mr. Greene's statements. The journals
involved were Le Matin de Paris, Le Nouvel Observateur and
VSD.

The court dismissed defamation charges against The New York
Times and its former Paris bureau chief, Richard Eder. Mr.
Eder's article on Mr. Greene's charges appeared in February
1982.
The case involved the daughter of a couple Mr. Greene
befriended in Cameroon in Africa in 1960. The daughter,
Martine Cloetta, married a man named Daniel Guy, who like
Mr. Greene lives in the Nice area.

The marriage broke up in 1979 and Mrs. Guy received custody
of two children. After the divorce, Mr. Guy is said to have
visited the home of Mrs. Guy's parents, assaulted the
father, and taken one of the children.

The police took no action against Mr. Guy, and this sent
Mr. Greene on a long investigation into corruption in Nice.
He charged that Mr. Guy was a racketeer who had been
protected by a corrupt police force.

In its ruling in the suit brought by Mr. Guy, the Paris
court declared Mr. Greene ''knew perfectly that his
affirmations were susceptible of doing damage to the honor
and esteem of the plaintiff.''